Windows Servers Base Operating System Management Pack

We start off this chapter discussing the Windows Servers Base Operating System for the simple reason that most of your infrastructure is probably Windows Servers. This management pack will most likely serve a vital role in monitoring the base components of your Windows Server. As advertised, it provides support for Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 Server, and Windows Server 2003. This MP provides monitoring for services, storage, and networking. It also measures common performance health indicators.

Just as the operating system is the basis of all Windows servers, this management pack should be considered the foundation of the other management packs. Each subsequent layer that you add to a server extends the functionality to change the server's role and should be followed by adding another management pack to cover that role. For example, an SMS Server can have many moving parts. The operating system, IIS, SQL, and SMS all work together to provide a systems management service. For SMS alone, it could require four management packs to watch the entire environment.

Important

Remember that because Windows NT 4.0 is supported in agentless mode only, it's limited to instrumentation available by WMI.

Installation

The Windows Servers Base Operating System management pack consists of the following files:

MicrosoftWindowsBaseOperatingSystem.akm
MicrosoftWindowsBaseOperatingSystemReports.xml
Base OS MP Guide.doc

As of this writing, the latest version number is 05.0.3000.0000. After downloading the management pack, extract the contents to a common location, and follow the steps in Chapter 8 to import the management pack. After importing the management pack, check the version number against the version number stated in the Management Pack and Product Connector Catalog.

Note

Using a common location for your management packs makes managing them easier. If you have multiple Management Groups, for example, by using the same management packs you can ensure that the Rule Groups always have consistency.

More detail can be found in the Base OS MP Guide.doc, which comes with the management pack. This document can also be found online at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/mom/mom2005/maintain/baseosmpguide_1.mspx.

Important

All of the management packs in this chapter contain Alert, Event, and State views. All of these management packs contain Tasks as well. Most of the MOM 2005 version management packs will contain Tasks as well as State views. Some of the MOM 2005 MPs also contain Diagram views (such as Active Directory MP). Some of the management packs, however, have not been refreshed to 2005. Because MOM 2000 did not have State views, Diagram views, or Tasks, you won't get these environment-enriching options should you load up a MOM 2000 MP into your MOM 2005 environment.

Configuration

The Base OS management pack requires a minimal level of configuration. In fact, it requires no configuration aside from adjusting thresholds where required. This is something the MOM Administrator would most likely have to do routinely anyhow. If the default values are good enough, this MP requires no configuration at all.

Components

This management pack consists of the attributes listed in the table that follows.

Attributes	Windows Current Version
Computer Groups	Microsoft Windows Servers
	Microsoft NT 4.0 Servers
	Microsoft Windows 2000 Servers
	Microsoft Windows 2003 Servers
Notification Groups	Network Administrators

After importing the management pack, the MOM agents need to run a discovery cycle for the new Computer Attribute, Windows Current Version. Based on this attribute, computers will be assigned to the Microsoft Windows Servers Computer Group as well as one of the following: Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Servers, Microsoft Windows 2000 Servers, or Microsoft Windows 2003 Servers.

In order for notifications to work properly, an operator must be assigned to the Network Administrators group. Refer to Chapter 6 for assigning operators to groups.

Important

You may notice in the following sections that other management packs also tend to use Network Administrators as the default Notification Group. Microsoft seems to group items that normally fall under network administration to this group (e.g., DNS, Active Directory, WINS, DHCP, and so on).

Scripts

The following rules execute script responses that can be adjusted according to the operating conditions of your environment:

Run Storage State Monitoring: Microsoft Windows Storage State Monitoring Script
Performance Threshold: Processor\% Processor Time threshold exceeded: Microsoft Windows Base OS CPU Overload Script

Microsoft Windows Storage State Monitoring Script

This reports when free space exceeds a certain threshold. The script parameters are broken down into Non-System and System drives. They are further defined as free space in megabytes and free space percentage.

Script Parameter Name	Description	Value
`MegaByteFreeSpaceThreshold`^[∗]	Minimum amount of free space on a volume before error alert occurs	100
`NonSystemDriveFreeSpaceMegaByteYellowState`	Minimum megabytes of free space before warning alert occurs	500
`NonSystemDriveFreeSpacePercentageYellowState`	Minimum percentage of free space before warning alert occurs	10
`NonSystemDriveFreeSpaceMegaByteRedState`	Minimum megabytes of free space before error alert occurs	250
`NonSystemDriveFreeSpacePercentageRedState`	Minimum percentage of free space before error alert occurs	5
`SystemDriveFreeSpaceMegaByteYellowState`	Minimum megabytes of free space before warning alert occurs	500
`SystemDriveFreeSpacePercentageYellowState`	Minimum percentage of free space before warning alert occurs	10
`SystemDriveFreeSpaceMegaByteRedState`	Minimum megabytes of free space before error alert occurs	250
`SystemDriveFreeSpacePercentageRedState`	Minimum percentage of free space before error alert occurs	5
^[∗]∗ Don't be fooled by this value. Even though it exists in the script, it's not actually used for anything at all. This was probably something that was used in an earlier script version.

It's important to note that both the value of the free space in megabytes and the value of the free space percentage have to breach the threshold before an alert is generated.

Note

This rule generates the alert directly from the script. There is no method of providing overrides or threshold adjustments for a group of servers without disabling this rule and creating new rules for each set of computers (in a Computer Group) with the modified values.

Microsoft Windows Base OS CPU Overload Script

This script checks for when both CPU percentage utilization and processor queue length exceed threshold. If both of the conditions occur (listed in the following table), it generates an alert.

Name	Description	Value
`CpuPercentageThreshold`	Alert if the processor % is above this value.	95
`CpuQueueLenThreshold`	Alert if the processor queue length (per processor) is above this value.	15

Tasks

The following table lists the available tasks in this management pack. It also states the context in which the task runs.

Task	Context
Share Configuration Query	Agent
Telnet	Console
IP Configuration Release and Renew	Agent
NBTStat-Adapter Query	Agent
NBTStat-Cache Query	Agent
NetStat-Display Total Active TCP Connections	Agent
NetStat-Display Total Active UDP Connections	Agent
Network Shell	Console
Network Statistics-Display Active Connections	Agent
Network Statistics-Display Active Connections and Listening Ports	Agent
Network Statistics-Display Active Connections in Numeric Order	Agent
Network Statistics-Display Active Routes	Agent
Network Statistics-Server Service Query	Agent
Network Statistics-Workstation Service Query	Agent
Path Ping	Agent
Route Print	Agent
Session Query	Agent
Trace Route	Agent
Local Users Query	Agent
User Account Settings Query	Agent

If the tasks execute in the context of the agent, LocalSystem provides all necessary permissions. However, if the agent runs in least privilege configurations, it may require additional permissions to execute some of the tasks. All console tasks are executed under the permission of the user using the Operator Console. If the user doesn't ordinarily have the rights to execute the task, using the task will fail.